Rain Gods (Hackberry Holland 2)

?Did you pick up the inner tubes?? Ruth, one of the twins, asked.

Nick stared blankly into space. ?I forgot.?

?You promised you?d go down the rapids with us,? Kate, the other twin, said.

?The water is still high. There?s a whirlpool on the far end. I?ve seen it. It?s deep right where there?s that big cut under the bank. I think we should wait.?

Both girls looked dourly at their food. His could feel his wife?s eyes on the side of his face. But his daughters? disappointment and his wife?s implicit disapproval were not what bothered him. He knew his broken promise would result in only one conclusion: The twins would go down the rapids anyway, with high school boys who were too old for them and would gladly provide the inner tubes and the hands-on guidance. In his mind, he already saw the whirlpool waiting for his girls, white froth spinning atop its dark vortex.

?I?ll get the tubes,? Nick said. ?Eat your food slowly so you don?t get cramps.?

He went back to his office and locked the door. What was he going to do? He couldn?t even think of a way to safely dispose of the photographs, at least not in the daylight. ICE had his name, Hugo Cistranos was circling him like a shark, and his conscience was pulsing like an infected gland. He couldn?t think of one person on earth he could call upon for help.

He sat at his desk, his face in his hands. How long would it be before Hugo Cistranos was at his door, demanding his money, implying Nick was a coward, making remarks about his nicotine habit, his weight, his bad eyesight, his inability to deal with the catastrophe his careless words ?Wipe the slate clean? had created?

To sit and wait for misfortune to befall him was insane. He had heard over and over about people ?surrendering? control during times of adversity. Screw that. He thumbed through his Rolodex and punched a number into his desk phone.

?How?d you get this number?? a voice with a New Orleans accent said.

?You gave it to me, Artie.?

?Then fuck me.?

?Hugo Cistranos says you offered him your Caddy to clip me.?

?He?s lying. I value my Caddy. It?s a collectible.?

?Hugo is lots of things, but a liar isn?t one of them.?

?You should know. Hugo is your employee, not mine. I don?t hire psychopaths.?

?I?m not guilty of what you think.?

?Yeah? What might that be? What might you be guilty of, Nicholas??

Nick could hear the telephone wires humming in the silence.

?You don?t want to say? I don?t think there?s a tap on my line. If you can?t wash your sins with your old podna Artie Rooney, who can you trust, Nicholas??

?It?s Nick. You told Hugo my family name was Dolinski??

?It?s not??

?Yeah, it is, because my grandfather had to change it so him and his family didn?t end up in a soap dish. They had to change it so the anti-Semite Irish cocksuckers in Roosevelt?s State Department wouldn?t shut them out of the country.?

?That?s a heartbreaking story, Nick. Maybe you could sell it as one of those docudramas? Didn?t your grandfather used to sell shoestrings door-to-door along Magazine??

?That?s right, with Tennessee Williams. They also ran a soup kitchen together in the Quarter. His name is in a couple of books about Tennessee Williams.?

Nick could hear Artie laughing. ?Your grandfather and a world-famous country singer sold soup to winos? Famous, rich guys do that a lot,? Artie said. ?When you?re in Houston or Big D, drop around. Life is no fun without you. By the way, tell Hugo he owes me. For that matter, so do you.?

The line went dead.

NICK DETERMINED THAT his angst and funk would not control the rest of his day. He rented huge fat inner tubes in town, big enough to float a piano on. He stopped by the bakery and bought a carrot cake glazed with white icing and scrolled with chains of pink and green flowers. He packed a half-gallon of peach ice cream in dry ice. He put on a pair of beach sandals and scarlet rayon boxing trunks that hung to his knees, and walked his children down to the riverside and ran a long nylon cord through all the tubes, lacing them together so they would not become separated as they floated downstream toward the rapids.

Nick was first in the chain, ensconced in his tube, his skin f

ish-belly white, wraparound black Ray-Bans on his face. The shade trees slid by overhead, the sunlight spangling in their leaves. He laid his neck on the rubber, its warm petrochemical smell somehow comforting, the current tickling his spine, his wrists trailing in the water. Up ahead was a partial dam that channeled the current through a narrow opening. He could hear the sound of the rapids growing in volume and intensity and feel the tug of the river redirecting his course.